Luca struggled against the restraints again now, anger mingling with the fear. This was another truth that could be twisted. They could kill Amarande and blame him—and then blame him for Sendoa’s death as well. One tidy package. “I would never have hurt my king. We were as good as blood. As family.”
Taillefer inspected the contents of the vial. “My mother would like both of her sons dead, and we are her blood. Blood and family mean nothing in the Sand and Sky.”
“Please, don’t. Don’t. There must be another way. Take me to the chapel. I will talk to Amarande. I will tell her she must kill Renard. She can kill your mother, too.”
“Your princess has yet to kill anyone. She needs the proper motivation. And you are it.” Luca struggled harder against the restraints. Again, his eyes combed the shadows for Ula’s face. She wouldn’t just watch, would she? Taillefer opened the vial. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. The line between mostly dead and actually dead is a thin one. One drop and you live—two drops and you die.”
Luca stiffened then, bracing, eyes open, watching the prince as he coated the stopper with a single drop of the liquid. A liquid that easily could’ve been slipped into King Sendoa’s water, clear and innocent as it was.
Taillefer smiled. “Let us both get what we want when you wake.”
The tincture made contact with the wound.
It didn’t burn. Didn’t sting. Didn’t feel like anything much at all.
Taillefer returned the stopper. Removed his gloves. Pulled out his journal.
And then he simply watched.
Luca shut his eyes then, thinking of Amarande. Her smiling face. Her quick wit. Bumps and bruises and lemon cake in the meadow.
Then Luca’s breathing slowed, chest rising every ten seconds, then once in a half minute. Then a minute. Then … not at all.
His eyes flew open, wide with panic. Taillefer watched, stoic and erudite, scribbling notes. No alarm, no worry, no empathy.
“Interesting,” was all he said, and not even to Luca, but under his breath, as his pencil moved across the parchment.
Distantly, there was a clatter.
“Prince Taillefer, sir, you sent for assistance?” It was Ula’s voice, projected over the shuffling of some feet. Taillefer, though, did not address her, every mad inch of him cataloging Luca’s face and still chest.
And then the world started closing in, Luca’s vision going from too much light to not enough. Black seeping in from the edges, until, like his breath, there was nothing at all.
CHAPTER
49
THE wedding gown fit horribly.
The bodice drooped, the cut impossible to correct for a smaller frame. The three maids and castle seamstress frowned at this as Amarande stood upon an ottoman in the bedroom that would be hers, a floor-to-ceiling mirror hauled in before her.
They’d taken the right length off the hem, her shoes wouldn’t show, and Amarande was relieved because she could wear her boots without a single person knowing.
Yet even with the hasty cut-and-tuck, the dress seemed too exhausted to go through with it.
You and me both, dress.
The fabric was dated and somehow tired, though it hadn’t been worn in nearly twenty years. Gold—at least it was gold and not that blasted purple. Carrying that color was Renard’s duty—aubergine and white with gold touches, just as he wore at their ill-fated dinner.
“Perhaps a sash? At the top? That will keep it from gaping,” Amarande offered, though she wasn’t sure the girls would go for it.
“Yes, yes, yes, Your Highness,” muttered the seamstress through the pins in her mouth.
With the princess’s guidance, they added one that was a red close to the garnet of Ardenia. They draped it over the top of the bodice, nearly to Amarande’s clavicles, before letting it scoop around into a bow at her lower back.
“Yes, much better. Good work.” The maids and seamstress appeared to enjoy this assertion from their newest royal, smiling to themselves.
Next, the maids went to work on her hair, brushing it until it flowed long down her back in silky ribbons instead of the wet tangle it had become after her sudden exit from the tub. It was still damp—the nature of her thick hair and little time—but they did what they could, twining together the topmost pieces into a braided crown that would be a lovely nest for a real one.
When they finished, Amarande tried very hard to produce a smile. “Thank you for your service. I’d like to cherish a few more minutes alone before the festivities begin. Please fetch me when it is time.”
When they’d left, the princess took a deep breath and then threw herself back onto the bed.
“I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.”
But the truth clawed at her heart and expressed itself in a frown she couldn’t shake.
“I can’t do this. I’m not here as a means to elevate men. To give up on my own dream. My own blood,” she whispered to herself. “My chance at love … but I am.”
Feeling the dizzy press of sadness and defeat, Amarande reached for the clasp locking the window—Renard hadn’t touched it, and surely it would open. It cost her a straight minute and one of her nails, but she pried the thing open.
Amarande inhaled the evening air, warm and damply cool all the same—summer in the mountains winding from scorching dry to something almost like autumn as the sun set. Much like home. Though this would never be home.
No matter if she figured out these vipers long enough to survive them—this place, this title, this station, would never be home, nor hers.
Empty stomach curdling with the weight of it all, Amarande took another deep breath of fresh air and then bent to the puddle of clothes she’d asked the maids to leave on the floor. She reached into the stolen breeches and found the remaining diamonds from her necklace. A lot of good they’d done her.
The princess stood and again walked to the window. She held the diamonds in her palms, watching the facets shimmer in the sun’s dying amber light, dozens of planes catching one after another, all shimmering in their own right. All vying to be the focal point.
Facets. So many facets.
Her father had often taken her to the diamond cutters’ workshops. There was one in the Itspi, of course, for an official royal diamond cutter by the name of Wenta, weasel-faced from a life staring at minuscule things and producing the perfect shimmer. But there were sanctioned diamond cutters outside of the castle—ones who took care of gems purchased by faraway rich men who paid for the perfection of an Ardenian gem.
“Why do we go from stall to stall, Father? Aren’t all diamonds the same?”
“No two diamonds are the same, Ama. No jewel, no cut.” With the diamond cutter’s permission, he held up the nearest stone. “Even one diamond can look completely different depending on the facet that catches the light in that moment. Just like in life—the facet in the shadow might have more beauty than the one in the light.” He rolled the diamond in his hand over, exposing yet another glittering side. And maybe it was more beautiful. “Never underestimate what you don’t see. In diamonds or in life.”
There was no beauty to this situation, but Ama had the distinct feeling that the Dowager Queen had purposefully twisted the princess’s situation to reveal another facet to the light.